All Forum Posts by: Armel Bayot

Good afternoon Armel. I literally just posted that over the past few weeks I've been getting a lot of off market deals from mt motivated sellers. With so many different counties and areas, it really all boils down to what your specifics are and what exit strategies you want to implement. 

Investment Info:

Small multi-family (2-4 units) other investment.

Purchase price: $60,000
Cash invested: $140,000

I am still in the middle of a total renovation on this project. It is a duplex in a rapidly gentrifying area of Columbus. The cash invested could change as I am a little less than half way through the renovation at this point. It is scheduled to be done toward the end of November. At that point I plan on financing the property and pulling my money out to go after more deals.

What made you interested in investing in this type of deal?

I want to be financially free through investing in real estate. I love the BRRRR strategy because it allows you to recycle your money in multiple deals and speed up the process of getting to financial freedom.

How did you find this deal and how did you negotiate it?

I have an amazing agent who brought this deal to me off-market that he found with his team. We were able to negotiate the price down $10K after the inspection because the property was in a little worse condition than we thought going into it.

How did you finance this deal?

I am using Cash that I saved up and some money from my retirement account and a HELOC to do all the renovations.

How did you add value to the deal?

We are still adding value as we are in the middle of doing a total gut job and renovation on the property. I hope to get an ARV in the upper mid 200's when it is done and pull out the majority of my cash while still getting healthy cash flow. Rents will go from about $600/month on each side to about $1,100 on each side.

What was the outcome?

TBD...

Lessons learned? Challenges?

When buying a crummy property in a gentrifying area, make sure its empty or tenants will be out when you close. I inherited a tenant that only had a month left on his contract, but hadnt paid in months. I should have had made the seller evict before closing. He caused a lot of problems and delayed renovations by a couple months and with Covid it was a lengthy eviction process.

Did you work with any real estate professionals (agents, lenders, etc.) that you'd recommend to others?

Yes - Remington Lyman of Reafco has been awesome to work with. I would recommend him and his team to anyone. I have been using ERA Realty Solutions for my property management as so far they seem amazing as well.

1 - Why would you take on a debt with a higher interest rate to pay down a debt with a lower interest rate?

2 - Using it to buy rental properties might work if those properties started out with a very high cash flow to cover the high monthly payments, however...

3 - I would use it as a cash reserve replacement for holding back arbitrary percentages of rent on your other properties to cover future CAPEX, vacancies, etc...

Using your equity via a HELOC is a great strategy, continuing to put the money in your residence to work for you and not letting that equity sit idle. A first lien position HELOC is a solid strategy to pay down principal quickly by using the HELOC as your checking accouont... This frees up more and more equity more quickly for you to use to go invest with.